was an

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

samurai The samurai () were members of the warrior class in Japan. They were originally provincial warriors who came from wealthy landowning families who could afford to train their men to be mounted archers. In the 8th century AD, the imperial court d ...

, and the 10th ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and no ...

'' of

Kaga Domain The , also known as the , was a domain of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan during the Edo period from 1583 to 1871.Hokuriku region The is located in the northwestern part of Honshu, the main island of Japan. It lies along the Sea of Japan and is part of the larger Chūbu region. It is almost equivalent to the former Koshi Province (Japan), Koshi Province and Hokurikudō are ...

of Japan. He was the 11th hereditary chieftain of the Kanazawa

Maeda clan The was a Japanese samurai clan who occupied most of the Hokuriku region of central Honshū from the end of the Sengoku period through the Meiji Restoration of 1868. The Maeda claimed descent from the Sugawara clan through Sugawara no Kiyotom ...

. Harunaga was born in

Kanazawa is the capital of Ishikawa Prefecture in central Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 466,029 in 203,271 households, and a population density of 990 persons per km2. The total area of the city was . Etymology The name "Kanazaw ...

as Tokijiro (時次郎), the tenth son of

Maeda Yoshinori was a Japanese samurai during the Edo period, and the 5th ''daimyō'' of Kaga Domain in the Hokuriku region. He was the 6th hereditary chieftain of the Kanazawa Maeda clan. Yoshinori was the third son of Maeda Tsunanori. His mother was a com ...

. His mother was a concubine and he was initially destined for the

Jōdo Shinshū , also known as Shin Buddhism or True Pure Land Buddhism, is a school of Pure Land Buddhism founded by the former Tendai Japanese monk Shinran. Shin Buddhism is the most widely practiced branch of Buddhism in Japan. History Shinran (founder) S ...

priesthood, and was ordained as a priest at the temple of Shōkō-ji in Toyama in 1746; however, with so many of his brothers dying untimely deaths during the ''

O-Ie Sōdō O-Ie Sōdō (, "house strife") were noble family disputes within the samurai and aristocratic classes of Japan, particularly during the early Edo period (17th century). The most famous is the ''Date Sōdō'', which broke out among the Date family in ...

'' known as the “Kaga Sōdō” he returned to secular life in 1768 under the name of Maeda Toshiari (利有). In 1771, his brother Maeda Shigemichi officially retired, and he became ''daimyō''. He was received in formal audience by ''

Shōgun , officially , was the title of the military rulers of Japan during most of the period spanning from 1185 to 1868. Nominally appointed by the Emperor, shoguns were usually the de facto rulers of the country, except during parts of the Kamak ...

Tokugawa Ieharu Tokugawa Ieharu 徳川家治 (20 June 1737 – 17 September 1786) was the tenth ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, who held office from 1760 to 1786. His childhood name was Takechiyo (竹千代). Ieharu died in 1786 and given the ...

the same year, and was granted a ''

kanji are logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script, used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are ...

'' from Ieharu's name, becoming Maeda Harunaga. In 1792, he established the Kaga Domain's

han school The ''han'' school was a type of educational institution in the Edo period of Japan. They taught samurai etiquette, the classical Confucian books, calligraphy, rhetoric, fighting with swords and other weapons; some also added subjects such as m ...

, Meirin-dō, and is also noted for restoring the famed

Kenroku-en , located in Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan, is a strolling style garden constructed during the Edo period by the Maeda clan. Along with Kairaku-en and Kōraku-en, Kenroku-en is considered one of the Three Great Gardens of Japan and is noted fo ...

gardens. Shigemichi had a son, Maeda Naritaka, after he retired, whom Harunaga adopted in 1791; however, he died in 1795. Harunaga then adopted Shigemichi's second son, Maeda Narinaga. Although Harunaga married a daughter of Maeda Toshimichi and had his own son, Toshinobu in 1800, when he retired, he turned the domain over to Shigemichi's son, Narinaga. Narinaga then adopted Toshinobu as heir, but Toshinobu died in 1805. Harunaga lived to 1810.

Family

*Father:

(1690–1745) *Mother: Onatsu no Kata later Jusei’in *Wife: Maeda Masahime *Concubine: Ito no Kata later Chikoin *son: Maeda Toshinobu (1800-1805) by Ito *Adopted Sons: ** Maeda Naritaka (1778-1795) ** Maeda Narinaga

References

* Papinot, Edmond. (1948). ''Historical and Geographical Dictionary of Japan''. New York: Overbeck Co.

External links

Kaga Domain on "Edo 300 HTML"
(3 November 2007) 1745 births 1810 deaths People from Kanazawa, Ishikawa People of the Edo period Maeda clan Tozama daimyo Jōdo Shinshū Buddhist priests {{Daimyo-stub